Oak  Street 
UNCLASSIFIED 


Volume  IV 
Volume  V 


July-September 
October-December 


Number  4 
Number  1 


Published  by  Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College 
Issued  Quarterly 


BULLETIN  OF 

RANDOLPH-MACON 
WOMAN'S  COLLEGE 

LYNCHBURG,  VA. 


MILTON'S  VIEWS  ON  EDUCATION.  THEIR  PRESENT 
SIGNIFICANCE  AND  VALUE 

By  PRESIDENT  WILLIAM  A.  WEBB 


Entered  as  second-class  matter,  January  5,  1915,  at  the  post-office  at  Lynchburg,  Virginia 
under  the  Act  of  August  24,  1912. 


BULLETIN 


OF 


RANDOLPH-MACON 
WOMAN'S   COLLEGE 


MILTON'S  VIEWS  ON   EDUCATION,  THEIR 

PRESENT   SIGNIFICANCE 

AND  VALUE 

By  PRESIDENT  WILLIAM  A.  WEBB 


Published  by  Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College 
lynchburg,  va. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2013 


http://archive.org/details/miltonsviewsonedOOwebb 


CKCiltons  'Views  on  Education,  their  Present  Significance 
and  IJalue^ 

To  Master  Samuel  Hartlib,  a  German  gentleman  of  Polish 
extraction  who  resided  in  England  during  the  Eevolution,  the 
people  of  his  adopted  land  were  deeply  indebted,  not  only  for 
his  efforts  to  advance  piety,  learning  and  morality  in  the  schools, 
but  also  for  his  practical  contributions  in  the  field  of  agricul- 
tural and  industrial  reform.  His  friendship  was  sought  after 
and  appreciated  by  some  of  the  most  illustrious  of  his  contem- 
poraries, both  at  home  and  abroad,  and  it  was  due  to  him  that 
the  writings  of  the  Moravian  reformer  Comenius  were  intro- 
duced into  England.  The  variety  of  his  interests  and  the  gen- 
erosity of  his  nature,  the  latter  illustrated  by  the  liberality  of 
his  gifts  to  the  poor  scholars  of  the  day,  which  sometimes  re- 
duced him  to  actual  want,  would  have  saved  hisi  name  from  ob- 
livion, but  later  generations  have  cherished  his  memory  mainly 
because  it  was  thru  his  influence  that  John  Milton  in  1644  was 
persuaded  to  write  out  his  views  on  education  which,  published 
in  the  same  year  as  the  Areopagitica^  might  very  well  serve  as  a 
sort  of  preface  to  the  better-known  essay.  Thru  them  both  runs 
the  same  compelling  purpose.  The  tractate  on  education  ot 
hardly  a  dozen  pages  expresses  no  less  than  his  splendid  Speech 
for  the  liberty  of  unlicensed  printing,  his  unswerving  faith  in 
the  efficacy  of  free  thought  and  free  speech.  In  them  both  he 
pleads  for  "the  liberty  to  know,  to  utter  and  to  argue  freely 
according  to  conscience. ' '  In  them  both  he  makes  freedom  based 
upon  willing  obedience  to  the  moral  law  the  undergirding  prin- 
ciple of  individual  rectitude  and  national  integrity. 

The  tractate,  like  most  of  his  prose  pamphlets,  was  a  protest — 
Milton  was  ever  a  protestant — in  this  case  a  protest  against  the 


1  President 's  Address  delivered  before  the  meeting  of  the  Association  of 
Colleges  and  Secondary  Schools  of  the  Southern  States  at  Atlanta,  Ga., 
November  15,  1917,  and  reprinted  by  permission  from  the  Educational  Re- 
view, New  York,  February,  1918. 


4  Bulletin 

prevailing  methods  of  education,  which,  instead  of  offering 
nourishing  food  to  the  young,  too  frequently  placed  before  them 
only  **an  asinine  feast  of  sow-thistles  and  brambles."  But  the 
tractate  was  more  than  a  protest.  It  was  a  declaration  of  Mil- 
ton's faith  in  the  power  of  education  '*to  principle  the  minds  of 
men  in  virtue,  the  only  genuine  source  of  political  and  indi- 
vidual liberty,  the  only  true  safeguard  of  states,  the  bulwark  ot 
their  prosperity  and  renown."  Such  he  himself  declared  in  the 
autobiographic  section  of  the  Second  defense  of  the  English  peo- 
plSf  written  some  ten  years  later,  to  be  the  specific  purpose  he 
had  in  mind  in  its  composition.  It,  therefore,  falls  naturally 
into  its  appropriate  place  in  the  cycle  of  his  more  important 
prose  writings,  for  like  them  it  revolves  about  the  great  central 
conception  of  responsible  liberty,  which  is  the  controlling  pas- 
sion of  his  soul. 

When  ]\Iilton  composed  his  essay  he  was  already  famous  as  a 
poet  and  scholar  and  was  in  all  probability  the  most  cultured 
man  in  England,  if  not  in  Europe.  His  scholarship  embraced 
an  intimate  and  an  exact  knowledge  of  the  languages  and  lit- 
eratures of  both  ancient  and  modern  times,  and  he  counted 
among  his  friends  and  acquaintances  some  of  the  most  eminent 
scholars,  statesmen  and  writers  of  the  Continent.  His  patriot- 
ism had  already  been  severely  testea.  In  Italy  at  tlie  outbreak 
of  the  Civil  War,  he  had  promptly  broken  off  his  journey  and 
returned  to  England  because  he  thought  it  base  to  be  traveling 
for  amusement  abroad  while  his  fellow  citizens  were  fighting  foi 
liberty  at  home.  Nor  was  he  without  experience  in  dealing  with 
the  practical  problems  of  the  classroom.  For  some  years  aftei 
his  return  from  abroad,  he  conducted  a  small  school  for  boys, 
first  in  Aldergate  Street  and  later  in  Barbican  Street.  But  his 
wide  scholarship  and  his  varied  experiences,  first  as  a  scholar 
and  student  in  St.  Paul's  and  the  University,  and  later  as  a 
teacher  in  his  own  school,  did  not  save  his  views  on  educational 
matters  from  severe  arraignment.  Even  to  some  of  our  modem 
students  of  education,  the  tractate  is  still  a  block  of  stumbling. 
The  scheme  of  instruction  proposed,  they  say,  is  impracticable, 
the  course  of  study    impossible  and    the  goal    of    achievement 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  5 

utterly  beyond  the  range  of  any  group  of  students  less  pre- 
cocious than  a  whole  college  of  Miltons.  His  critics  are  right. 
The  demands  he  proposed  to  make  upon  the  energy  of  his 
youthful  scholars,  if  literally  carried  out,  were  simply  studen- 
dous.  The  modern  languages,  Italian  for  example,  he  casually 
suggests  might  readily  be  picked  up  at  any  odd  moments,  and 
after  the  pupils  have  once  mastered  the  elements  of  Latin  and 
Greek  there  is  no  reason,  he  thinks,  why  they  should  not  utilize 
their  Sundays  by  learning  Hebrew  and  the  Syriac  and  Chaldee 
dialects.  Geometry  was  to  be  studied  as  a  sort  of  pleasant 
game  between  the  masters  and  the  scholars,  and  a  knowledge  of 
the  physical  sciences  including  agriculture,  architecture,  navi- 
gation and  astronomy,  was  to  be  obtained  thru  Latin  textbooks. 
It  is  not  surprising  that  a  recent  writer  in  one  of  the  standard 
encyclopedias  refuses  to  believe  that  Milton  could  have  been  a 
successful  teacher,  and  frankly  declares  that  his  excursion  into 
the  field  of  education  is  only  another  example  of  the  truth  that 
it  is  not  much  use  putting  Pegasus  into  harness.  This  writer, 
however,  should  not  be  too  severely  criticized;  he  was  only  fol- 
lowing in  the  footsteps  of  the  great  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson,  him- 
self the  most  noted  schoolmaster  in  English  letters  after  Milton, 
who  exprest  doubts  about  the  results  of  this  ''wonder-working 
academy"  from  whose  walls,  so  far  as  he  knew,  there  had  never 
proceeded  any  man  eminent  for  knowledge.  But  Dr.  Johnson 
was  a  High-Churchman  and  a  loyalist  and  was  hardly  prepared 
to  do  justice  to  the  champion  of  the  Independents  who  praised 
Cromwell  and  defended  the  regicides. 

But  these  are  not  the  only  charges,  nor  the  most  serious  ones, 
that  might  be  brought  against  the  famous  essay  if  one  were  in- 
clined to  measure  its  shortcomings  by  modem  standards  and 
ideals.  The  students  for  whom  Milton  planned  hi®  scheme  of 
education  where  the  sons,  and  sons  only,  of  gentle  and  noble 
parentage.  The  needs  of  the  opposite  sex  did  not  come  within 
the  scope  of  his  discussion,  and  he  had  not  caught  the  vision 
splendid  of  our  modem  democratic  conception  of  public  educa- 
tion which  offers  equal  opportunity  to  all  without  distinction  of 
sex  or  social  position.     But  the  very  limitations    of    Milton's 


6  Bulletin 

vision  added  to  the  intensity  of  his  convictions.  He  had  dedi- 
cated himself,  soul  and  body,  to  the  advancement  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  Revolution  and  the  establishment  of  the  Common- 
wealth. His  eyesight  itself  was  not  too  precious  a  sacrifice  for 
the  altar  of  his  country.  He  had  cheerfully  laid  aside  his  '*  gar- 
land and  singing  robes"  and  for  long  years  had  purposely  post- 
poned the  composition  of  his  masterpiece,  in  order  that  he 
might  perform  the  ''lowliest  duties"  in  behalf  of  his  nativt 
land.  The  tractate  is  a  leaf  torn  from  his  own  experience  and 
its  characters  are  written  in  his  heart's  best  blood.  A  brief 
analysis  of  it  will  show  how  keenly  he  appreciated  some  of  the 
deeper  problems  of  education  and  how  essential  he  felt  their 
proper  solution  was  to  the  realization  of  the  high  ideals  of  citi- 
zenship which  he  ever  exemplified  in  his  own  life  and  consist- 
ently taught  his  countrymen  both  by  precept  and  example. 

In  the  very  foreground  of  his  discourse  he  declares  that  the 
true  aim  of  all  educational  effort  is  to  train  the  man  and  the 
citizen.  Not  learning,  not  scholarship,  not  intellectual  suprem- 
acy— as  highly  as  he  appreciated  these  things  of  themselves— 
but  manhood  in  its  noblest  reaches  is  to  be  the  high  argument 
of  his  thought  and  the  chief  goal  of  his  endeavors.  In  lan- 
guage that  is  couched  in  the  theological  phraseology  of  the  day, 
he  declares  that  the  end  of  all  learning  is  "to  repair  the  ruins 
of  our  first  parents  by  regaining  to  know  God  aright,  and  out 
of  that  knowledge  to  love  Him,  to  imitate  Him,  to  be  like  Him, 
as  we  may  the  nearest,  by  possessing  our  souls  of  true  virtue, 
which,  being  united  to  the  heavenly  grace  of  faith,  makes  up  the 
highest  perfection."  The  poet  who  was  to  invoke  as  the  inspira- 
tion of  his  immortal  epic  a  divinity  no  less  exalted  than  the 
heavenly  muse  herself  was  not  willing  to  place  the  foundation 
stone  of  his  temple  of  learning  on  any  less  secure  basis  than  the 
knowledge  of  God  and  the  desire  to  know  Him  and  be  like  Him. 
To  Milton  the  worthiest  representative  of  the  new  learning  and 
the  Renaissance  no  less  than  to  Milton  the  Puritan  and  the 
Protestant,  man's  education  was  not  complete  until  he  had  re- 
produced God's  image  on  earth.  "The  reason,  the  passions,  the 
feeling  for  beauty,  the  energies  which  tend  to  action,  strength 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  7 

and  skill  of  hand,  the  principles  of  public  conduct,  statesman- 
ship, law,  art,  war — all  are  sacred  because  all  are  portions  of 
the  fully  developed  life  of  man. ' '  ^ 

But  his  most  valuable  contribution  to  the  literature  of  the 
subject  is  his  famous  definition  of  education,  which  alike  in  its 
simplicity  of  statement,  its  comprehensiveness  of  terms,  and  its 
nobleness  of  purpose  has  never  been  surpast.  ' '  I  call,  therefore, 
a  complete  and  generous  education  that  which  fits  a  man  to  per- 
form justly,  skilfully,  and  magnanimously  all  the  offices,  both 
private  and  public,  of  peace  and  war." 


Milton*®  scheme  of  education  falls  into  three  divisions — 
studies,  bodily  exercises,  and  diet.  Taking  these  in  the  reverse 
order,  we  may  quickly  dismiss  the  last.  The  hard  study  and 
spare  diet  of  the  academy  which  is  to  be  the  home  of  his  pupils 
from  their  twelfth  to  their  twenty-first  year  anticipate  the 
Wordsworthian  ideal  of  "plain  living  and  high  thinking." 
Bodily  exercises  are  to  receive  the  attention  worthy  of  their 
dignity  and  importance.  Fencing,  wrestling  and  other  forms  of 
athletic  training  were  planned  not  merely  to  satisfy  the  needs  of 
the  physical  man  or  to  gratify  the  youthful  inclination  for 
sport,  not  merely  to  keep  the  boys  ''healthy,  nimble  and  strong" 
and  make  them  ''grow  large  and  tall,"  but  to  "inspire  them 
with  a  gallant  and  fearless  courage,  which  being  tempered  with 
seasonable  lectures  and  precepts  to  make  them  of  true  fortitude 
and  patience  will  turn  into  a  native  and  heroic  valor  and  make 
them  hate  the  cowardice  of  wrongdoing."  The  daily  muster  in- 
cluded "marching,  encamping,  fortifying,  besieging  and  batter- 
ing, with  all  the  helps  of  ancient  and  modern  stratagems,  tactics, 
and  warlike  maxims" — a  program  that  would  satisfy  the  most 
enthusiastic  champion  of  military  training  in  our  schools  and 
colleges.  Like  everything  else  connected  with  Milton's  schemt 
of  education,  these  exercises  were  directed  to  a  definite  end, 
namely,  that  from  them  his  young  men  should  "come  forth  re- 


2  Dowden,  Puritan  and  Anglican  studies. 


8  Bulletin 

nowned  and  perfect  commanders  in  the  service  of  their  coun- 
try." 

Their  intellectual  training  begins  with  some  simple  exercises 
in  scientific  and  language  study,  but  advances  rapidly  until  it 
embraces  a  list  of  writers  whose  names  might  well  give  pause  to 
the  stoutest  hearted  of  modern  classicists.  Cebes,  Plutarch, 
Quintilian,  Plato,  Cato,  Varro,  Columella,  Aristotle,  Seneca, 
Celsus,  Pliny,  Hesiod,  Theocritus,  Aratus,  Xenophon,  Cicero, 
Euripides,  Sophocles,  Demosthenes,  Hermogenes,  Longinus,  ana 
Horace  are  sufficient  to  indicate  the  range  and  compass  of  his 
curriculum.  These  authors  are  to  be  read  and  studied  each  foi 
a  particular  purpose,  for  Milton  is  nothing  if  not  practical, 
idealist  tho  he  is.  From  them  his  students  are  to  gain  insight 
into  the  mysteries  of  agriculture,  geography,  economics,  politics, 
logic,  rhetoric,  composition,  law,  mathematical  and  physical 
sciences,  and  theology.  But  let  no  one  think  for  a  moment  that 
they  are  to  be  entirely  separated  from  the  swift-moving  cur- 
rents of  everyday  life.  It  was  no  monastic  existence  that  he  had 
in  mind.  On  the  contrary,  they  shall  have  abundant  oppor- 
tunity of  coming  in  personal  contact  with  hunters,  fishermen, 
mariners,  explorers,  architects,  engineers — in  a  word,  with  men 
of  action  who  can  give  them  ''such  a  real  tincture  of  natural 
knowledge  as  they  shall  never  forget. ' '  Under  the  inspiring  tui- 
tion of  skilful  teachers  they  shall  receive  from  the  philosophers, 
historians,  orators  and  lawgivers  "such  an  ingenuous  and  noble 
ardor  as  would  not  fail  to  make  many  of  them  renowned  and 
matchless  men."  But  the  program  is  not  yet  complete,  for 
there  shall  also  be  opportunity  for  them  to  study  the  beauties  ot 
nature,  especially  in  "those  vernal  seasons  of  the  year  when  the 
air  is  calm  and  pleasant,"  "the  solemn  and  divine  harmonies 
of  music,"  "the  tragedies  of  stateliest  and  most  regal  argu- 
ment," the  uses  of  poetry  "both  in  divine  and  human  things," 
and  the  day's  work  shall  not  cease  until  they  shall  have  come 
under  "the  determinate  sentence  of  David  or  Solomon,  or  the 
evangels  and  apostolic  scriptures."  By  such  means  they  shall 
become  "inflamed  with  the  study  of  learning  and  the  admira- 
tion of  virtue,  stirred  up  with  high  hopes  of  living  to  be  brave 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  9 

men  and  worthy  patriots,  dear  to  God  and  famous  to  all  ages." 
Trained  in  these  ideals  our  lawyers  will  no  longer  pass  the  time 
in  pleasing  thoughts  of  "litigious  terms,  fat  contentions,  and 
flowing  fees,"  our  ministers  will  not  be  given  over  to  worldly 
ambitions,  our  men  of  affairs  will  be  otherwise  occupied  than 
''living  out  their  days  in  feast  and  jollity,"  and  our  political 
councillors  will  indeed  become  "steadfast  pillars  of  state." 

Such  is  Milton's  ideal  "of  a  virtuous  and  noble  education; 
laborious  indeed  at  the  first  ascent,  but  else  so  smooth,  so  green, 
so  full  of  goodly  prospect  and  melodious  sounds  on  every  side, 
that  the  harp  of  Orpheus  was  not  more  charming."  Since  hi^ 
day  many  of  our  greatest  thinkers — Locke,  Newman,  Huxley, 
Herbert  Spencer,  Matthew  Arnold,  Carlyle,  TJuskin,  Emtr&on — 
have  written  illuminatingly  and  convincingly  on  the  subject  of 
education,  but  I  question  whether  any  one  of  them  has  gone  be- 
yond Milton  either  in  depicting  a  nobler  ideal  or  in  describing 
more  happily  the  true  function  of  education,  namely,  to  fit  one 
"to  perform  justly,  skilfully,  and  magnanimously  all  the  offices, 
both  private  and  public,  of  peace  and  war."  In  its  clear-cut 
recognition  of  the  rights  of  the  individual  on  the  one  hand,  and 
of  the  state  on  the  other,  in  its  provision  for  the  full  and  com- 
plete development  of  man's  physical,  intellectual  and  spiritual 
nature,  in  its  insistence  upon  the  sanctity  of  truthfulness  and 
necessity  of  justice,  in  its  wideness  of  vision,  its  directness  of 
aim,  its  oneness  of  purpose,  it  gives  verbal  expression  to  the 
very  genius  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race;  and  where  it  has  been 
tried  out,  either  in  Great  Britain  or  in  those  newer  common- 
wealths, including  our  own,  which  have  sprung  from  her  loins, 
it  has  had  a  great  and  profound  influence  in  determining  the 
character  and  molding  the  destiny  of  the  English  speaking  na- 
tions of  the  earth.  If  asked  to  account  for  the  difference  be- 
tween the  ideals  of  life  and  conduct  which  has  suddenly  yawned 
like  a  mighty  chasm  between  the  German  nation  and  our  own, 
would  we  not  find  it  largely  due  to  the  fact  that  the  German 
people  have  not  yet  learned  the  meaning  and  significance  of 
that  fundamental  principle  on  which  Milton  based  his  whole 
scheme  of  education,  namely,  the  liberty  "to  know,  to  utter  and 


10  Bulletin 

to  argue  freely  according  to  conscience?"  Is  it  not  this  realiz- 
ing sense  of  liberty  of  thought  and  action  which  begets  sober- 
ness of  judgment  and  disciplines  one  to  act  both  justly  and  mag- 
nanimously as  well  as  skilfully  in  the  performance  of  public  and 
private  duties  ?  The  absence  of  this  ideal  from  the  German  con- 
sciousness, or  perhaps  I  should  rather  say  a  lack  of  its  realisa- 
tion in  German  life,  points  to  the  fatally  vulnerable  joint  in 
Germany's  armor  and  indicates  the  place  where  the  spear  of 
outraged  humanity  will  finally  pierce  thru  to  her  vitals.  *'By 
the  soul  only  the  nations  shall  be  great  and  free." 


Since  the  beginning  of  the  war  much  serious  thought  has  been 
given  to  the  consideration  of  methods  and  principles  of  educa- 
tion. The  main  controversy,  as  might  have  been  expected,  has 
ranged  around  the  relative  advantages  and  disadvantages  of 
scientific  and  humanistic  studies.  From  time  immemorial  the 
man  on  the  street  has  been  accustomed  to  argue  that  inasmuch 
as  a  knowledge  of  the  applied  sciences  has  added  so  immensely 
to  the  material  resources  of  the  world,  while  literary  studies 
have  so  little  to  show  for  the  time  and  patience  spent  on  them, 
we  should  frankly  follow  the  trend  of  the  times  and  place  the 
burden  of  emphasis  on  those  studies  which  promise  large  and 
visible  returns  in  the  good  things  of  life.  Since  the  outbreak  of 
the  war,  this  conception  of  education  has  won  new  converts  by 
reason  of  the  phenomenal  successes  of  the  Germans,  who  havb 
sho^vn  such  marvelous  skill  in  the  use  of  the  mechanical  arts 
and  in  the  application  of  technical  and  scientific  training  to  the 
enginery  of  war.  Both  in  this  country  and  in  Great  Britain 
there  has  been  an  increasing  number  of  writers  on  education 
who  have  been  demanding  a  reorganization  of  the  school  and 
college  curriculum.  They  are  insisting  upon  a  lai^er  substitu 
tion  of  scientific  for  literary  studies  and  are  clamoring  for  a 
still  further  curtailment  of  the  classics.  A  knowledge  of  the 
physical  sciences,  such  as  electricity,  mechanics,  chemistry  and 
the  like,  they  declare,  would  be  infinitely  more  valuable  at  the 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  11 

present  time,  both  for  the  individual  and  the  state,  than  the  con- 
tinued study  of  languages,  literature,  or  the  social  sciences.  But 
after  all,  is  there  solid  ground  for  this  belief  ?  Sir  Philip  Mag- 
nus, who  stands  high  as  an  authority  both  as  a  scientist  and  as 
an  educator,  declares  in  a  recent  article  that  the  study  of  lit- 
erature, language  and  history  is  still  a  constituent  element  in 
modem  education.  ''The  main  purpose,"  he  declares,  ''of 
school-teaching  is  clear  thinking  and  self-expression ;  and  whilst 
the  study  of  science,  especially  in  its  higher  branches,  helps  to 
cultivate  logical  and  accurate  thought,  it  is  only  thru  the  me- 
dium of  literature  and  language  that  thought  can  be  adequately 
exprest.  There  should  be  no  conflict,  therefore,  between  these 
two  great  branches  of  learning,  and  it  should  be  recognized  that 
the  foundations  of  education  must  rest  on  a  humanistic  basis. ' '  ^ 
This  position,  it  seems  to  me,  is  impregnable.  Each  of  these 
grand  divisions  of  knowledge,  the  domain  of  the  physical 
isciences  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the  humanities  on  the  other, 
has  its  enthusiastic  advocates  and  loyal  followers;  each  offers 
unlimited  capacity  for  the  satisfaction  of  the  curiosity  of  the 
mind;  each  furnishes  to  a  greater  or  less  degree  the  chance  foi 
developing  self-expression  and  the  power  of  thought ;  each  when 
properly  pursued  contributes  elements  which  are  inseparably 
connected  with  our  idea  of  a  truly  educated  man.  In  reality 
they  are  not  antagonistic,  but  complementary.  One  star  differ- 
eth  from  another  star  in  glory.  In  insisting,  therefore,  upon 
the  intrinsic  value  of  literary  studies  we  are  not  disparaging 
scientific  training.  Every  sane  man  knows  that  in  the  prose- 
cution of  the  war  as  well  as  in  the  reparation  of  its  ravages  that 
will  come  at  its  close,  we  shall  use  as  we  have  never  used  before 
the  scientific  skill  and  the  technical  ingenuity  of  the  American 
mind.  But  if  we  are  wise,  we  shall  not  forget  that  more  im- 
portant lesson  which  a  recent  writer  in  the  London  Times  ha& 
seen  fit  to  remind  his  own  countrymen  of.  "We  have  no  wish,'* 
he  says,  "to  neglect  these  (scientific)  studies.  They  have  their 
place.  But  it  is  the  second,  not  the  first.  It  is  not  matter  but 
spirit  that  is  going  to  win  this  war.    It  is  not  matter  but  spirit 

sNmeteenth  Century,  June,  1917. 


12  Bulletin 

that  we  are  going  to  need  to  solve  the  problems  that  will  come 
after  the  war.  And  it  is  literature  and  literature  alone  which 
can  nourish  that  vital  spirit.  For  literature  by  its  very  nature 
deals  always  with  human  life,  while  physical  science  by  its 
very  nature  deals  with  matter  which,  if  it  has  life  at  all,  has  at 
least  no  life  which  is  human.  .  .  The  whole  of  the  people,  each 
for  his  own  sake,  and  for  the  sake  of  all  the  rest  too,  will  need 
a  knowledge  of  human  life.  .  .  The  wisest  man  of  all  antiq- 
uity turned  away  from  the  study  of  physical  sciences  and  gave 
himself  to  that  of  the  life  of  man.  And  why?  Because,  as  his 
greatest  pupil  declared,  'an  intelligent  man  will  prize  those 
studies  which  result  in  his  soul  getting  soberness,  righteousness 
and  wisdom,  and  will  less  value  the  other. '  "  * 

Scientific  studies  will  find  their  appropriate  place,  and  it  will 
be  one  of  increasing  honor  and  service,  but  they  can  never  sup- 
plant without  irreparable  loss  those  disciplines  whose  special 
function  it  is  to  open  the  mind,  to  clarify  the  vision,  and  "to 
extend  from  the  few  to  the  many  the  delights  which  thought 
and  knowledge  give,  saving  the  people  from  degenerating  into 
base  and  corrupting  pleasures  by  teaching  them  to  enjoy  those 
which  are  high  and  pure."  Not  even  the  bitter  exigencies  of 
modern  warfare  and  the  hard  necessity  of  meeting  a  resourceful 
and  unscrupulous  enemy  will  make  us  forget  the  value  of  our 
human  heritage.  Surely  no  worse  calamity  could  befall  us  in- 
tellectually and  morally  than  the  wilful  neglect  of  those  studies 
which  have  come  down  to  us  from  the  past  redolent  with  the 
wisdom  of  the  ages  and  still  capable  of  firing  the  imaginations 
and  inspiring  the  hearts  of  our  youth  to  become  "brave  men 
and  worthy  patriots,  dear  to  God  and  famous  to  all  ages."  If 
we  wish  to  realize  Milton's  dream  of  responsible  liberty  thru  an 
ordered  democracy  not  only  in  our  own  country,  but  thruout 
the  world,  we  must  not  neglect  to  school  our  children  in  a  knowl- 
edge of  those  literatures  which  in  both  ancient  and  modern 
times  have  preserved  the  great  ideals  of  the  race.  The  neces- 
sity of  this  procedure  is  eloquently  brought  home  to  us  in  an 


4  Times  Literary  Supplement,  June  1,  1916. 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  13 

essay  on  Education  and  freedom  by  Professor  R.  S.  Conway, 
of  Manchester  University.     He  says: 

The  epoch  in  which  the  free  life  of  England  bore  its  most  glorious  fruit, 
both  in  action  and  letters — the  age  of  Elizabeth — was  the  age  in  which 
Greek  literature  had  just  been  re-discovered,  an  age  in  which  the  Greek 
sense  of  beauty  and  the  Greek  passion  for  freedom  inspired  our  own  poets. 
For  if  Shakespeare  knew  only  a  little  Greek,  Thomas  More  and  Spenser 
and  Herrick  and  Herbert  and  Sidney  knew  a  great  deal;  and  Shakespeare's 
whole  political  thought  is  colored  by  his  love  for  the  Greek  biographies  of 
Plutarch,  read  in  the  magnificent  English  of  Thomas  North.  Since  that 
day  such  names  as  Bacon,  Milton,  Clarendon,  Burke,  Chatham,  Gladstone, 
to  mention  no  living  examples,  are  those  of  men  who  have  learnt  from 
classical  scholarship  to  be  great  defenders  of  freedom.  Our  public  schools 
have  not  studied  the  ancient  authors  for  nothing;  if  you  want  to  implant 
in  a  boy  some  reverence  for  freedom,  some  knowledge  of  what  it  means, 
you  will  not  give  him  definitions  or  well-meaning  talk  about  civic  or  ethi- 
cal theory;  he  merely  hates  such  abstractions.  Nor  will  you  hope  to 
achieve  this  end  by  concentrating  his  thoughts  on  the  exact  laws  of  physi- 
cal science,  important  as  they  are  for  other  ends.  The  study  of  physical 
science  at  its  best  should  awaken  some  conception  of  the  wonderfulness  of 
the  world,  of  the  fixity  of  its  laws,  of  the  danger  and  futility  of  falsehood 
and  impatient  or  careless  observation;  but  for  more  far-reaching  ideals 
which  he  is  to  follow  in  public  conduct  a  boy  must  look  not  to  the  scien- 
tific but  to  the  humane  side  of  his  training.  If  education  is  to  make  men 
good  citizens  of  the  world,  not  merely  good  carpenters  and  plumbers,  not 
merely  docile  instruments  of  tyrannical  commands,  it  must  teach  them 
something  of  men,  must  inspire  them  with  some  affection  for  the  ideals  by 
which  mankind  has  been  swayed.  And  that  is  the  reason  for  the  study  ot 
literature;  only  from  the  record  of  what  men  have  thought  and  felt  can 
a  boy  or  girl  learn  to  understand  the  conceptions  that  move  men  most.  To 
implant  the  sources  of  morality,  the  ethics  of  private  conduct,  no  disquisi- 
tions on  the  beauty  of  the  separate  virtues  will  ever  compete  with  the  di- 
vine parables  of  the  New  Testament;  so  in  the  region  of  public  ethics,  if 
you  wish  to  kindle  patriotism  and  courage,  teach  your  children  such  poetry 
as  the  Agincourt  scenes  of  Shakespeare's  Henry  the  fifth.  And  if  you 
wish  to  instil  into  a  boy's  mind  a  conception  of  freedom,  give  him  to 
read  the  story  of  the  struggle  of  Athens  with  Persia  in  Herodotus,  or  in 
the  patriotic  drama  of  the  poet  Aeschylus,  who  fought  himself  at  Mara- 
thon; give  him  to  read  the  defense  of  Plataea  in  Thucydides,  or  any  one 
of  the  great  speeches  of  Demosthenes  against  Philip,  and  he  will  come 
away  with  a  knowledge  of  the  meaning  of  freedom  that  no  experience  can 
blot  out,  with  a  respect  for  the  free  spirit  which  no  hardness  or  bitter- 
ness of  life  will  ever  wholly  extinguish.s 


5  Contemporary  Beview,  vol.  109. 


14  Bulletin 

And  now,  as  we  behold  our  nation — God  grant  she  may  prove 
both  ** noble  and  puissant" — ''rousing  herself  like  a  strong  man 
after  sleep,  and  shaking  her  invincible  locks,"  as  she  arms  her- 
self for  the  purpose  of  bringing  peace,  safety  and  freedom  to 
the  world,  shall  we  not  rededicate  ourselves  to  the  high  calling 
wherewith  we  have  been  called,  resolved  that  our  students  shall 
receive  as  far  as  we  are  able  to  give  them  that  ''complete  and 
generous  education"  which  shall  fit  them  "to  perform  justly, 
skilfully  and  magnanimously  all  the  offices,  both  private  and 
public,  of  peace  and  war  ? ' ' 


